Alternative title: “Demo-nic Possession”. Cos, you know, occult and stuff. Oh, nevermind. Wolfenstein, the recent manshoot from Raven, has a demo. I know, how about that! We certainly have had a bumper crop of game demonstrations of late. This particular demo is apparently a mere 685mb big, which seems quite economical in these engorged times. It also means that the game is no good, because small = bad, as we all know. Should you choose to install it, you’ll find yourself in a strange alternate world where the Nazis didn’t win the war, because someone shot at them, to death. Get it here, and I am sure there will be more mirrors along soon. Like this one.

I’m not suggesting a full price purchase, and I’m not really defending the game, but having seen it on sale at a number of retailers (presumably due to the aforementioned critical response) I do wonder if it’s worth, say, $25.

Have you read PC Gamer’s review of it? They think it actually could be GOTY. Then again, they think a lot of things, but they even put the game on their cover, with an editorial saying that they were going to put Dragon Age up there but then decided that Wolfenstein was either way cooler (maybe not), or actually playable (pick this one), and put it on the cover instead.

I have to say, I love the concept of feely-goody shooters. I just don’t want demons or aliens in them. Just plain old nazis or terrorists or whatever, please.

Objective survey meaning arbitrary numbers based on a “super secret formula that won’t be disclosed”, which seems to be based on converting C’s into 70/100 ratings and that drops statistical outliers to get a better “average”.

I played it on le xbox, you know what? It wasn’t bad. I’d probably buy it when the price drops. The demo was a good 20 minute slice of fun, IMO. Probably won’t set the world on fire but why does it need to?

Tried the PC version over at a mate’s house and it was like stepping into a timewarp, with all the positives and negatives that entails. No-frills shootyblams was definitely a positive, the samey level design and less-than-spectacular encounters less so. Like Penny Arcade once said (about Unreal 2): It seems like a perfectly mediocre game, which is useful because it can be used to calibrate the scale.

eye played the ps3 demo today, (not sure my PC can render all that so niclely). and was quite enjoying it. That beam weapon you get after that ‘glowy green dude’ blasts out the train car is super sweet,. . not sure about all the majic power crystal based occult stuff,. but what I played so far was quite purdy,. and much deeper than some commenters are making it out to be,. . I liked it anywho.

eye played the ps3 demo today, (not sure my PC can render all that so niclely). and was quite enjoying it. That beam weapon you get after that ‘glowy green dude’ blasts out the train car is super sweet,. . not sure about all the majic power crystal based occult stuff,. but what I played so far was quite purdy,. and a tad deeper than some commenters are making it out to be,. . I liked it anywho.

Everyone, especially KG, pissed on Fear 2 because it didn’t revolutionize the genre or strike out in some bold new direction. But you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I even liked the turret sequences with the rock music. So, Kieron, what do you think of Wolfenstein? (alas even if he doesn’t think much of it I won’t be playing another FPS for a while)

Playing this now, finding it really fun actually. “Feel-good shooter” is a pretty accurate description. Bullets come out at the end of a gun when you pull the trigger of said gun, and people tend to die when you hit them. Such basic things, yet so many games cannot make it work. Also, digging the cartoonish nazis in bright, colourful war-torn German towns. Such a breath of fresh air among countless bleak UE3 shooters that try to be photorealistic.

You know, I’m cool with RPS trying different ways of saying “First-Person Shooter”, exploring the linguistic frontiers of English in the hopes of finding the solution to perhaps the most awkward noun in the game journalist’s vocabulary.

But seriously, manshoot? I know that’s a word used in one o’ them steamy novels, but I’m not sure whether it’s related to manroot or manseed. Perhaps it’s just ol’ Swiss’ Mountain Heritage expressing itself.

Ignore the reviews, but consider the following facts. It’s about 8 hours of gameplay, the MP is horrible there is limited replay value (and play it on Hard by default, Ultra Hard if you’re feeling saucy). The generic hurrdurr remarks hold very little water, unless you can name a dirth of other games that have come out in the past few years that feature the following.

1) Cloaking Nazi-predators with energy blades on their arms
2) Nazi Particle cannons
3) Nazi sorcerers who throws fireballs at you and summon evil ghouls
4) NAZI GOLD
5) Nazi neck-shots
6) Nazi super-powers
7) Your own super-powers, including the ability to walk through walls, shoot through cover, and make people age to death by just touching you
8) A fun hub-world with lots to discover and plenty of nazis to shoot
9) Nazi Tesla-coil guns

Sound good? Yeah, it did to me too, it’s a great game, just make sure that the price is right for that 8 hours of fun you’re going to have with it.

I’ll give another vote to the ‘not impressive but very enjoyable’ camp. I played the demo on xbox (my laptop is reserved solely for 2d goodness nowadays), and I can say I had a good half hour of shooter fun with it. It’s very old school in its approach to everything from level design to gameplay mechanics, but since I grew up with old school shooters I count that as a plus. I’m one of the few people who enjoy exploring environments and looking for random trinkets (in an obsessive compulsive manner), and the way the game handles that reminded me a lot of the original Wolfenstein add-on, Spear of Destiny. As others have said, 60 euro might be a bit much for this, but then I seem to think it’s a bit much for anything and prefer to buy all my games used.

Very obviously a multiplatform game. The menu system was clearly designed to not be used with a mouse and after numerous times of clicking the wrong thing I ended up having to use the keyboard. Also saw the unpleasant “Aim Assist” option on by default. Looking around had that horrible moving through treacle feel that all these multiplatform, primarily console, games have.

Besides those complaints, the game itself seemed to be reasonably enjoyable. The big particle gun was a hell of a lot of fun, in particular. I really wasn’t sure about the magical device thing though. It seemed very much like a way of ham-fisting in slo-mo and some other powers. Think the game would have been fine without it to be honest. Using the number keys for the powers also made it a bit fiddly. I was constantly hitting the veil power whenever I meant to change weapon. Although rather unnecessary, I can’t deny that it wasn’t still fun to go slo-mo and flank the Nazis.

So, general consensus of fun but nothing special seems to be about right.

Yes, think this will be a good way to pass a few hours once it’s down to less than a tenner.

Agree with the veil comments – totally unnecessary, particularly the ‘veil walls’ idea. An extra button click for a mundane act such as passing through to another corridor? Maybe this makes more sense in the full game though, if there are secrets that can only be found using it.

I also kept getting in a muddle between iron sights, reload and veil power keys, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem after a few hours play.

I think videogames have broken me because the most fun I had was in upgrading my weapons and seeing the upgrades work.

The floating nazis were silly then kind of sad. “Vat ze hell, get me done from here!”

I don’t see why you wouldn’t spend the entire game in the light blue thing where you move faster, see enemies easily, and reveal their weakspots. There are enough recharge points that you’ll never run out and there are no downsides…

What were those floating things that didn’t do anything but go “pop” when I shot them?

My biggest gripe is that even the maximum mouse sensitivity is still hella slow. Dragging the mouse across the entire table just to turn 90 degrees? What kind of game still suffers from that? Even the problems in Wolfenstein are old school.

Wow…that was horrible. The mouse is sooo slow, I don’t really know what the green stuff was about beyond bullet time, I don’t know why the men were floating and why I never died. Do you have health? Do you just heal?

Confused.

Got damn annoyed with being told on loop “BJ! We need you to cover us with the MG42!”. I was moving, never delayed and was still told three times. Shut. Up. I have no idea why I’m covering you. What’s going on?!?!?!?

“Agree with the veil comments – totally unnecessary, particularly the ‘veil walls’ idea. An extra button click for a mundane act such as passing through to another corridor?”

Because they can build environmental puzzles around it. Like a wall you need to phase through, but a hidden Veil-inhibitor nearby.

The Veil powers seem pointless at first – until the Nazis start ramping up their equipment. When they bring in the Sorcerors, Portable Veil-Shielded MG42 emplacements and heavy shock troopers with beam cannons, you’re going to want those Veil powers.